Alternatives to a "total wipe"

A place for The Mana World players to discuss game-related topics outside the scope of development including guilds, player interactions, game meta and more.


What solution would you like for TMW's inflation?

A complete wipe of all items/money/levels
9
24%
A partial wipe of one of the above
2
5%
A voluntary system of "money-sinks" such as a new quest unlockable only when a great deal of bug money is removed from the game
16
43%
An automated removal of a percentage of everyone's GP
2
5%
Two servers for players--one for those who don't want a wipe and one for those who do
2
5%
Nothing, the eAthena server should be left as it is
6
16%
A different solution entirely (please detail in your comments to this thread)
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 37
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fate
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Re: Alternatives to a "total wipe"

Post by fate »

Platyna,
Platyna wrote:So what if we cut the money and levels if players has large amounts of valuable items?

Regards.
If the items are uniques, then their value is determined by market prices only-- and after a money reset, the market prices will go down dramatically. So eliminating non-rares and leaving rares _might_ work `well enough'.
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Crush
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Re: Alternatives to a "total wipe"

Post by Crush »

What items are really "valuable"? The prize of rares is always relative to what others can pay for them.

So how much money can a player fit into its inventory space and weight capacity only with buyable items? When it is much I don't think that it would really hurt much to wipe items which can be rebought.
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Sertraline
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Re: Alternatives to a "total wipe"

Post by Sertraline »

Platyna wrote:So what if we cut the money and levels if players has large amounts of valuable items?
It wouldn't be my first choice, but I would go along with it. It is a fairer solution, or at least should have broader appeal to those players with emotional attachment to their characters by any estimation.

That said, again, I think levels are only indirectly related to inflation. I also prefer the money-sink because it could potentially be reinstated from time to time as an additional "drain" to keep future inflation in check.
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fate
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Re: Alternatives to a "total wipe"

Post by fate »

Crush,
Crush wrote:What items are really "valuable"? The prize of rares is always relative to what others can pay for them.

So how much money can a player fit into its inventory space and weight capacity only with buyable items?
With the first point I agree. For the second point: as many as the player can create characters, times some factor X. This factor is the maximum of f(i) for i in all items, where

f(i) = sell-value(i) * max(initial-max-carry / weight(i), max-slots * stackability(i))

(This value should be much easier to determine for a developer who can simply translate it into an SQL or xslt query than for me). Using `cherry cake' for a quick lower bound estimate, I wind up with a bit more than a million as lower limit of X. Recall (a) that this is PER CHARACTER, and (b) with a retention rate of 50%. Meaning that someone with (say) 20M illegal only needs to create ten characters to bear loads of cherry cake, retaining 10M.

(Assuming that you can actually buy cherry cake, I'm not really sure about that one.)
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Crush
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Re: Alternatives to a "total wipe"

Post by Crush »

To sum it all up I would suggest the following compromise:
  • Find a fix to the rapidfire bug
  • Lower levels according to the formula posted in post 6
  • Delete all items which can be bought from NPC shops, keep those which can't be bought
  • Delete any money over 10k (just enough to get a basic NPC equipment and some healing items when they got deleted by the last measure)
Regarding the item recoloring: Keep in mind that you will get it anyway sooner or later. Turning it into a money sink is an option but not a requirement for introducing it.
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Platyna
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Re: Alternatives to a "total wipe"

Post by Platyna »

Fate - good, simple and sober thinking. I have nothing more to say, he said it all.

Regards.
Habari
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Re: Alternatives to a "total wipe"

Post by Habari »

* Find a fix to the rapidfire bug
ok, i agree with this one
* Lower levels according to the formula posted in post 6
the relationship between players levels would be the same , the important it not im lvl 30 and someone else level 70 but the fact he has 40 levels more than me, it would be the same if im lvl10 and the other one in lvl 50
* Delete all items which can be bought from NPC shops, keep those which can't be bought
well it sounds ok , i will wait to see how it works
* Delete any money over 10k (just enough to get a basic NPC equipment and some healing items when they got deleted by the last measure)
i still insist deleting money doesnt work , they will recoverit again , we have to find the cause that makes people have so much money and fix it.
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Re: Alternatives to a "total wipe"

Post by Habari »

by the way i will propose adding tax to tmw , maybe just vat for transactions between players or for shops , it would cut peoples income in a fair way without a wipe
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Crush
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Re: Alternatives to a "total wipe"

Post by Crush »

Habari wrote:
* Lower levels according to the formula posted in post 6
the relationship between players levels would be the same , the important it not im lvl 30 and someone else level 70 but the fact he has 40 levels more than me, it would be the same if im lvl10 and the other one in lvl 50
This statement is wrong. Please study the table in the post again. The higher your level the more you will lose resulting in less level difference between players.
* Delete any money over 10k (just enough to get a basic NPC equipment and some healing items when they got deleted by the last measure)
i still insist deleting money doesnt work , they will recoverit again , we have to find the cause that makes people have so much money and fix it.
We already did.

The reason for the excess money was the casino money dupe bug which has been fixed.
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Landon
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Re: Alternatives to a "total wipe"

Post by Landon »

How about we hold a raffle for a one of a kind "Very Special Item" have people with X amount of money give X amount percentage of that money toward a raffle to win that item. Everyone would have a chance to have something that no one else has and that would level the economy.

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Platyna
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Re: Alternatives to a "total wipe"

Post by Platyna »

Sertraline wrote:
Platyna wrote:You know how many players with level 40 we have? 2452, from 6698 - therefore these who are really playing the game, it is ALOT, and definately not possible in a healthy economy system, since level 40 is or rather should be, hard to get.
Perhaps it should be, but it isn't. You said yourself you can reach level 60 in one week. This is the fault of eAthena/TMW dynamics, not money exploitation.
Yes, it should be and it isn't, isn't it what I have wrote above? And decreasing the levels as Crush said will still interfere with my plans ot leveling curve, and it will mainly punish low level players who did not abuse the bug. If I can kill everything it doesn't matters much if I am level 70 or not.

Regards.
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Crush
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Re: Alternatives to a "total wipe"

Post by Crush »

Landon wrote:How about we hold a raffle for a one of a kind "Very Special Item" have people with X amount of money give X amount percentage of that money toward a raffle to win that item. Everyone would have a chance to have something that no one else has and that would level the economy.
Hmmm... the golden platemail maybe?

But I still wonder how this could be scripted.

Or maybe do it by hand? Would be quite a lot of work.
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melonie
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Re: Alternatives to a "total wipe"

Post by melonie »

As far as a solution to the economy issue. I have thought over all of the ideas very throughly. I have heard it said that you shouldn't be able to gain more than 200k honestly. I have earned more that 500k honestly on more than one occasion just from selling drops and rares. I don't feel that the money problem would be solved by taking away levels and fast attack. I agree with Landons idea that we should do a raffle in which all charaters can enter and x amount of money for a one of a kind item. That way it gets rid of extra money without causing harm to the innocent players whom knew nothing about the casino bug. We all know how much people in the game like having a rare, what would be even better is to have a rare that there is only 1 in existance.
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Landon
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Re: Alternatives to a "total wipe"

Post by Landon »

We could at the item like any other item, have a GM collect the money for the raffle, and have a GM award the item to the winner.
Crush wrote:
Landon wrote:How about we hold a raffle for a one of a kind "Very Special Item" have people with X amount of money give X amount percentage of that money toward a raffle to win that item. Everyone would have a chance to have something that no one else has and that would level the economy.
Hmmm... the golden platemail maybe?

But I still wonder how this could be scripted.

Or maybe do it by hand? Would be quite a lot of work.

Landon
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Crush
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Re: Alternatives to a "total wipe"

Post by Crush »

melonie wrote:As far as a solution to the economy issue. I have thought over all of the ideas very throughly. I have heard it said that you shouldn't be able to gain more than 200k honestly. I have earned more that 500k honestly on more than one occasion just from selling drops and rares.
"selling rares" is the key here. Rares would have never become that valuable without any duped money around.

But we still need some way to spend a lot of money to NPCs and thus take it out of the game. A raffle would be a good way to do so, but it should be done regularily to be effective. And thus it should be scripted.
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Please do not send me any inquiries regarding player accounts on TMW.


You might have heard a certain rumor about me. This rumor is completely false. You might also have heard the other rumor about me. This rumor is 100% accurate.
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